The real city of light is one of Europe’s best value destinations for art-lovers
Named several times as the best value city break destination in the Eurozone and described by CNN as “the coolest city in Europe”, Lisbon enjoys a pleasant year-round climate, including the warmest winters of any European metropolis. Sitting at the mouth of the River Tagus, it is the second oldest capital on the continent after Athens.
Lisbon (the Portuguese Lisboa means ‘good light’) also boasts world class museums showing virtually the entire spectrum of artistic output from antiquity to the present day. Many of the public and private collections are housed in former palaces and convents which would be worth a visit even without their museum displays.
Lisbon’s iconic trams are a great way to get around
Reopened in 2024 after an extensive, four-year refurb (its big cousin next door, the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, named for its industrialist founder, is still shuttered for restoration), the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM) stands in a lush public park completely planted with native species and with ponds which are home to goldfish and turtles.
CAM’s most prominent new feature is a curved, 100 metre-long entrance canopy based on the Japanese ‘engawa’, a traditional structure which provides a space for interaction between indoors and out or, as the architects Kengo Kuma explain, ‘a soft transition between what is nature-made and what is man-made”. Entering the museum is like walking under the great hull of a wooden ship, while the ceramic roof echoes Lisbon’s omnipresent tile work. (More later.)
A Japanese ‘engawa’-inspired structure dominates the entrance to CAM
Changing displays feature around 350 works from CAM’s 12,000-piece collection, including paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings, prints, photographs and videos/films by some of Portugal’s most renowned artists along with international contributions.
A display at CAM
Jump on the iconic No.15 tram (if there’s room – it’s Lisbon’s most popular moving attraction) to the Belem district in the western part of the city, where you’ll find the Museum of Contemporary Art & Architecture Centre (MAC/CCB), Portugal’s largest cultural building. (Nearby, be sure to check out the massive Jeronimos Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and next to the Praca do Imperio (Empire Square) with its impressive fountain.)
A modern take on a medieval ‘castillo’ made of huge sandstone blocks, the sprawling complex shows works drawn from several collections, notably the Berardo Collection, assembled by the Madeira-born businessman Jose manual Rodrigues Berardo. Featuring over 900 works from all the major 20th century movements, it is one of the world’s best private collections of modern and contemporary art, fit to rival anything in New York, London or Paris.
A display in the Berardo Collection
The works are represented in roughly chronological order in a permanent exhibition called Atlantic Drift, which traces connections between European and American art. It’s like strolling through the history of 20th century art, with the list of artists reading like a Who’s Who of modern art, including (deep breath) Warhol, Picasso, Dali, Duchamp, Magritte, Modigliani, Miro, Bacon, Pollock, Koons, Bourgeois, Hockney, Mondrian, Basquiat, Lichtenstein, Ernst, Rego, Nauman, Pollock, Koons and many more – over 170 in all. (Phew!)
A display in the Berardo Collection
For an excellent overview of 19th and 20th century Portuguese art, head for the Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporanea (MNAC), which houses the most important collection of state-owned modern and contemporary works, including by Portuguese greats such as the Naturalist Veloso Salgado and Jose Malhao, Silva Porto (dubbed “the divine master”), Aurelia de Sousa and Antonio Carneiro.
Carlos Botelho, ‘Lisbon and the Tagus, Sunday‘, 1935, oil on wood (MNAC)
The works are arranged by chronology and artistic movement, starting in the late 1870s and taking visitors on a crash course through a century of Portuguese art. There is also a sculpture garden featuring 19th and 20th century bronze works.
Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporanea (MNAC)
The labyrinthine building is a which was later used as a biscuit factory. (The brick ovens are still there.) It benefited from a 1990s makeover which retained the atmospheric vaulted ceilings, complemented with a beautiful finish in stone, metal and a floor of polished dark blue stone from Cascais.
Mario Eloy (1900-1951), ‘Dance in the Neighbourhood’, c.1936 (MNAC)
Lisbon’s newest major addition to the art scene is the Armando Martins Museum of Contemporary Art (known by its Portuguese acronym MACAM), which holds one of the best private art collections in Portugal. Gathered together over 50 years by the real estate tycoon after whom it is named, it comprises over 600 works, offering an overview of Portuguese art from the late 19th century to the present day along with contemporary works by international artists – all set against the backdrop of a modernised former 18th century monastery. The complex also includes a five-star hotel with art-filled rooms.
MACAM occupies a former 18th century palace
The galleries devoted to Portuguese art demonstrate how artists embraced late 19th century movements occurring elsewhere in Europe, and also how they responded to the censorship and isolation imposed by pver 40 years of dictatorship.
Lino Antonio (1898-1974), ‘The Woman and the Greyhounds’, c.1926 (MACAM)
In the international section, visitors can expect to see fine art, photography, video and installation by the likes of Tony Cragg, Marina Abramovic, Ernesto Neto and Olafur Eliasson, displayed in dialogue with Portuguese artists. The permanent exhibition is complemented by changing exhibitions in a modern annex building adjacent to a spacious sculpture court.
Located in former cruise terminals, the Almada Murals at the Maritime Stations are the largest and most important set of 20th century mural paintings in Portugal. They were completed for the Alcantara and Rocha do Conde de Obidos Maritime Stations in 1945 and 1949 respectively by the artist Jose Sobral de Almada Negreiros. A purpose-built vehicle, designed to look like an original baggage trolley, shuttles visitors between the two buildings.
Painted in a bold and vibrant style unprecedented in official art commissions at the time, the murals depict the role of the former passenger terminals in historical events such as WWII, emigration and the return of Portuguese from the colonies.
Not all the themes in the murals were to the liking of the ruling Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship, dealing as they did not with national heroes, as had been expected, but with common people and daily life on the riverside. Of particular concern were depictions of strong black characters, public displays of affection and scenes of poverty, which Almada considered his most personal work. Only the intervention of third parties saved the murals from destruction. Almada Negreiros also created murals on the theme of courtship for the Lisbon’s Ritz Hotel.
While the world’s most renowned street artist has never left his mark in Lisbon, many of his works can be seen in the Banksy Museum in the form of reproductions by local artists, some of works which are no longer in existence. One of several such museums around Europe and in New York, the museum traces Banksy’s career from the days when street artists were hunted down, arrested, prosecuted and sometimes imprisoned. There is lots of info on the backgrounds and locations of the originals and the reaction to them.
‘Pillow Fight’ adorns a room in Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel (geddit?) in Jerusalem, where Israelis and Palestinians can only fight with feathers
Banksy’s rebellious approach is in full swing throughout the museum. Some images show characters who are supposed to represent authority put in compromising situations (Pissing Soldier, Snorting Copper), while others subvert works by the likes of Jean-Francois Millet, Claude Monet, Jack Vettriano and Jacques-Louis David to comment on issues such as blind acceptance of authority, mass consumerism and the environment.
In ‘Show Me The Monet’, Banksy commented on contempt for the environment
Security is extra tight at the Royal Treasure Museum, where over 22,000 precious stones are held in one of the biggest vaults in the world. The eye-popping crown jewels cover eight centuries of Portuguese royalty from medieval times to the establishment of the Republic in 1910, when selected works from the private collections of the former royal family became state property. It is these which are on display today.
A gold and silver 1750s French snuff box inlaid with diamonds and emeralds
The many highlights include: an eight-kilogram rock of gold from Brazil clustered with quartz; a sprawling, multi-piece German silver table service; a Spanish bodice ornament in the shape of a bow encrusted with emeralds, diamonds and silver; and the Badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which alone is covered with over 1,700 diamonds.
Another vault holds a collection of a different kind. In a former bank building near the broad, river-facing Placa de Comercio, Lisbon’s grandest square, the Museum of Design (MUDE) sets out to demonstrate how products, fashion, graphics, stage sets, jewellery and publications reflected or transformed the periods in which they were designed.
Located in a former bank, the Museum of Design displayed Vivienne Westwood dresses in the vault
Venture along the Avenue Brasilia beside the Tagus River to the Museum of Art, Architecture & Technology (MAAT), an elegantly curved white building where art and technology meet in dazzling displays. The terrace cafe and the observation deck on the sloped roof offer sweeping views. Further along, MAAT also presents changing exhibitions in the massive, red brick former Tejo power station.
MAAT merges art and technology
The streets of Lisbon are paved not with gold, but with tiles. Millions and millions of them form the pavements, arranged in everything from mosaics of simple white stone to elaborate ceramic patterns. Painted tiles, called ‘azulejos’. also adorn the exteriors of churches, palaces, houses, schools, restaurants, bars and even railway and subway stations. Head to the Tile Museum) for the full run-down on the history and development of this unique urban feature.
The streets of Lisbon are paved with tiles
A wonderful, but often overlooked private art collection of decorative arts can be found at the Medeiros e Almeida Museum, where over 2,000 pieces of furniture, painting, sculpture, textiles, timepieces, ceramics, silverwork and sacred art dating from the 2nd century BC to the 20th century are on permanent display. The collection was assembled by the businessman Antonio de Medeiros e Almeida (1895–1986), who was first to import British cars into Portugal and later became a pioneer in civil aviation.
A room in the lavishly appointed Medeiros e Almeida Museum
The huge range of works is displayed in over two dozen galleries in the collector’s mansion, which is resplendent in wood panelling, painted ceilings and sumptuous decoration. Some of the items are associated with famous personalities, such as a silver tea and coffee set used by Napolean Bonaparte while in exile, a pocket watch owned by the Duke of Wellington, even a bidet once used by the French royal family!
Another art-filled former home worth visiting is the Dr. Anastacio Goncalves House Museum, where about 3,000 works include 19th and 20th century Portuguese and European painting, Chinese porcelain, furniture, jewellery, ceramics, sculptures, textiles and glassware. The house was owned from 1932 by an ophthalmologist, Dr Goncalves (1889-1965), who filled it with his wide-ranging collection and later bequeathed it to the state of Portugal for a museum.
Painter Jose Malhoa’s former studio in the Anastacio Goncalves Museum
The house was originally owned by the painter Jose Malhoa (1855-1933), who rose from humble beginnings to become successful enough to build his mansion. Everything Malhoa painted between 1905 and 1914 was painted in the house. You can still stand in his spacious studio lined with paintings by the likes of the naturalist Silva Porto and Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro, who is said to have influenced Rembrandt. Once surrounded by fields on the edge of the city, it is now surrounded by highrises.